It has been objected to the Great Reformation of the sixteenth century that it exercised a prejudicial influence on the arts of painting and statuary.  The same argument might have been urged against the gospel itself in the days of its original promulgation.  Whilst the early Church entirely discarded the use of images in worship, its more zealous members looked with suspicion upon all who assisted in the fabrication of these objects of the heathen idolatry. [320:2] The excuse that the artists were labouring for subsistence, and that they had themselves no idea of bowing down to the works of their own hands, did not by any means satisfy the scruples of their more consistent and conscientious brethren.  “Assuredly,” they exclaimed, “you are a worshipper of idols when you help to promote their worship.  It is true you bring to them no outward victim, but you sacrifice to them, your mind.  Your sweat is their drink-offering.  You kindle for them the light of your skill.” [320:3] By denouncing image-worship the early Church, no doubt, to some extent interfered with the profits of the painter and the sculptor; but, in another way, it did much to purify and elevate the taste of the public.  In the second and third centuries the playhouse in every large town was a centre of attraction; and whilst the actors were generally persons of very loose morals, their dramatic performances were perpetually pandering to the depraved appetites of the age.  It is not, therefore, wonderful that all true Christians viewed the theatre with disgust.  Its frivolity was offensive to their grave temperament; they recoiled from its obscenity; and its constant appeals to the gods and goddesses of heathenism outraged their religious convictions. [321:1] In their estimation, the talent devoted to its maintenance was miserably prostituted; and whilst every actor was deemed unworthy of ecclesiastical fellowship, every church member was prohibited, by attendance or otherwise, from giving any encouragement to the stage.  The early Christians were also forbidden to frequent the public shows, as they were considered scenes of temptation and pollution.  Every one at his baptism was required to renounce “the devil, his pomp, and his angels” [321:2]—­a declaration which implied that he was henceforth to absent himself from the heathen spectacles.  At this time, statesmen, poets, and philosophers were not ashamed to appear among the crowds who assembled to witness the combats of the gladiators, though, on such occasions, human life was recklessly sacrificed.  But here the Church, composed chiefly of the poor of this world, was continually giving lessons in humanity to heathen legislators and literati.  It protested against cruelty, as well to the brute creation as to man; and condemned the taste which could derive gratification from the shedding of the blood either of lions or of gladiators.  All who sanctioned by their presence the sanguinary sports of the amphitheatre incurred a sentence of excommunication. [322:1]